During the past decade, clinical studies have been conducted to actively reduce the blood temperature of victims of sudden cardiac arrest, following resuscitation. These studies have demonstrated that rapidly reducing blood temperature to 32°-34° C. following resuscitation, significantly improves survival. Currently available therapeutic hypothermia techniques are based on physical cooling, as by placing the patient in a bath of cold water with ice. This is usually available only in hospitals because of the large physical dimensions and complexity of use. Such physical cooling requires nearly 8 hours to achieve the target cooling temperature in clinical practice.